Looking for Trouble (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 1)

He barely noticed. “My mom is dead because of something Wyatt Bishop did. Someone has to pay for that!”

“His kids?” her dad yelled back. “That’s what you want? To make his kids pay?”

“Why not? Everyone has been making us pay for decades! And now they’re the ones getting all the sympathy, holding that bastard up like a fucking community hero.”

“Watch your language,” her dad snapped.

“Watch my language?” he shouted. “Are you kidding? Watch my language, keep my head down, keep my mouth shut, calm down. That’s all you ever had to say about any of this. ‘Ignore them, David. You give them more power if you respond.’ Well, guess what? That’s not fucking true. I should’ve fought all of them a long time ago!”

Her dad blew out a long breath behind her. “What are you talking about?” he asked wearily.

“I’m saying I’m not going to be weak anymore. I’m going to take what belongs to me.”

“And what belongs to you is someone else’s money?” he sighed.

“Fuck you!” David snarled.

Sophie pushed her finger into his chest. “Don’t you speak to him that way. Ever.”

He knocked her hand away, too, startling her so much that she stepped back.

“Fuck you, too, Sophie. You’re not my mom and you never have been.” He finally spun away and stalked to his room. The slam of his door shook the whole house.

Sophie stood frozen in shock. Her brother had always seemed sullen and childish, but this was a new low.

“Hey, don’t cry, princess.”

Her dad turned her into his arms and hugged her. She hadn’t realized she was still crying, but as his arms closed around her, she sobbed.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s all right. I’ll talk to David once he’s settled down and find out what’s going on. Maybe he just needs to talk it out and then I can get him to drop this nonsense.”

“But he’s already done it. Everybody already knows.”

He patted her back in that way he’d done since she could remember. He’d probably been doing it since she was a toddler and her mom had married him. “It doesn’t matter what they think, Sophie. What matters is that we do the right thing. You know that.”

Yes. She knew that. He’d always told her and David that. She hadn’t believed it, and neither had David apparently, but Sophie had always appreciated it at least. Her brother clearly hadn’t seen it the same way.

“Why would he do it?” she whispered, as if her dad could have any sort of answer.

He squeezed her hard again. “He was only one. He doesn’t remember your mother at all, sweetheart. All he’s ever known about her is anger and shame. You and I, we knew something more than that. We knew how funny she was. How quick to laugh. We knew the good things. He never got that. He’s mixed up about it.”

Well, Jesus, Sophie was mixed up, too, but she had some damn common sense. She did sometimes wonder if David would’ve been a better man if Mom had been around, but maybe he would’ve been just as weak and whiny. Maybe he would’ve been worse.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away to wipe her tears. Her dad pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “This must all be tough for you. The memorial service and the memories, and now this....”

He shrugged. “It is what it is. I’m a grown man. I can handle a little gossip. Anyway, I’ve got this place, and a great daughter to take care of me. It’s not so bad.”

When she’d been young, she’d wondered if he’d even heard the rumors that had flown. After all, he li

ved way out here on his own. She and David hadn’t had the choice to be isolated. They’d had to go to school. Had to face the taunting.

In fact, her dad had been so good at facing things stoically, she’d wondered whether he missed her mom at all. But sometimes when she’d been a little girl plagued by bad dreams and afraid to sleep, she would sneak down the hall toward the faint light of her dad’s reading lamp. And every once in a while she’d find him sitting in his big easy chair, head in hands, and a bottle of Scotch open on the table next to him. The night when she’d finally realized he was quietly sobbing, she’d stopped sneaking out to the living room. It was too scary to know her big strong stepfather was just as hurt as she was.

But just like he always did, he assured her he’d be fine about this new blow. She didn’t know how to figure out if he was really fine or not, so she mopped up her tears and did what she always did. She got to work.

“What were you doing today?” she asked as she moved to the kitchen to wash the few dishes that had been left in the sink.

“Looking for the last few strays. We’re selling a little early this year.”